Family Album - a birthdayfic
by b11rthdaycake
Summary: Yeah! It's the 11th of november again! This is my contribution in honour to Logan Cale's birthday for this year. It might be a little morbid or off, but then, it just came to me and wanted to be out. Enjoy the story and don't forget the community with all the birthdayfics for Logan that I set up last year. If you find another fic of someone that I missed, please let me know.


So, this is my yearly birthday fic for Logan.

This time it might be a wee bit morbid, but I couldn't help it. The story wanted to be out, so here she is. :)

Enjoy the reading!

Far

* * *

**Familiy Album - a birthdayfic**

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**Penthouse, Fogle Towers, 11th November**

Logan turned the page. The speckled paper smelled dry and a bit smoky, but it was the sweet nuance of pipe tobacco, not the displeasing smell of cigarettes. The ancient traces of brittled glue were so fragile, that he had to turn the page carefully and with both hands to provide at least a bit stability. This photo album that lay there in front of him on his living room table was not only old, it was antique. The oldest photographs dated from the early 20th century. Logan even spotted one monochrome snapshot of one of his ancestors with Henry Ford.

Pensively he sipped on his red wine. Yes, it had been a very good idea indeed to take a look on his origins and ancestors on his birthday. Logan swept a satisfied glance around his living-room. The candles were burning calmly at the edge of the table and emanated a peaceful and solemn atmosphere.

‚How interesting!', he thought, as he turned the page, ‚Why didn't I do this already during the last couple of birthdays?'

Logan gazed on the next couple of monochrome photographs, which must date already in the 1930s or 1940s. He saw a smiling woman in uniform tending to the laundry in the garden, a formal stone building with a black old-timer car parked in front of it. There was a family portrait of his grandparents and all their children, obviously taken at a professional photographer's studio.

After he had carefully set the wine glass far away for not to spoil the album, Logan turned on to the next page. As soon as he spotted the picture on the left side, a flash of memories pierced through him, like a flash in a lightning. It electrified him, without knowing why.

In the picture were Uncle Jonas and his dad as toddlers together with their mother - his grandmother, and … a man. A man, who seemed to be oddly familiar. Deep inside of him this face touched a string. But Logan couldn't place the man. Who was he?

And directly next to it, his father and uncle Jonas…..

* * *

Logan's thoughts rambled.

Yes uncle Jonas….

Logan had to think about the death of uncle Jonas…. murdered by one of his own drones….

….. that had been the time of their own way too narrow escape from the hover drone. The time when they had made the acquaintance of this crazy but friendly Phil with the exosceleton and the camera.

All of Logan's memories of that time came back at once.

Directly after the drone incident, Max and Logan had rested together with Phil at Logan's flat to gain new strength. Phil did manage to repair the exosceleton and Logan refurbished his wheelchair, so the tires rolled fine again. It had been a wee bit damaged during the whole chase.

Five days after that, a letter had arrived. Max had picked it up downstairs and brought it up to Logan. Logan smiled mildly as he remembered how irritated Max had been, she never had seen an envelope with a broad black margin on all sides, which was padded and apparently stained with rich perfume. It had been an obituary notice and the invitation to uncle Jonas' funeral.

Logan then had explained to Max how funerals in general worked and elaborated about his family specialties. At the wedding of Bennett and Marianne, Max could already get a glimpse of Logan's family, which helped. Logan bade her to accompany him this time as well. But Max had had doubts about that and had asked, whether the funeral could have been safe enough for Logan. Since Uncle Jonas had been killed by a rogue hover drone and all their experiences in the days following the incident…

Logan had not been sure about his safety, not at all. But he felt a strong urge to attend to it nonetheless. They had discussed a lot of pros and cons and in the end - Logan remembered that hard discussion well - they had decided, that Max would go alone to the reception at the graveyard and film everything for Logan, who would be waiting in his car around the corner. Back then it had felt like a defeat for Logan, his limitations had been mirrored bluntly to him, but he couldn't bring up a better solution at that time.

* * *

Logan scratched his nose, because it was tickling. That action jerked him out of his memories. Suddenly, he was sitting again in the dulled light of his living-room in front of his family album, staring at the face of this man in the toddler photo of his ancestors. The face stared back at Logan. He quickly reached for his wine to take a sip, perhaps it would break the enchantment.

Then Logan felt a strong urge to move away from that picture, to grant his mind a break. Therefore, leaving the open album at its place just as it was, Logan headed to the kitchen for to start cooking. Perhaps Max would come later, and then it would be good to have something prepared. And if not, he would have something to eat for the next day.

During his cooking session, Logan's thoughts continued to muse about his family issues in the back of his mind. As he finally finished the roasted beef with Béchamel sauce, carrots and potatoes, he decided to watch the video clip of the funeral that Max had filmed back then while he treated himself to a delicious meal.

Logan prepared everything, fetched the old video, set his plate and his wine and started to watch.

* * *

The funeral of Uncle Jonas

At first, the video was blurred. Max had to walk quickly while filming for her cover and she had to get used to filming. After she had reached a good position, the video became steady and now Logan could make out the sound of the voices. Beforehand it had been mostly windy sounds. Max had swept slowly over all the faces of the attendants with the camera, so Logan could recognize nearly everyone. He enjoyed to see all the familiar faces, most of which he saw or had at least contact through a letter every other year or so.

But there were also some forgotten relatives of which Logan had no clue where they were dwelling these days or what they were occupied with. For example, the two boys of his granduncle Joey, which the camera had caught at this point. But at least, they had been to Uncle Jonas' funeral.

Then, Logan choked on his bite. This couldn't be real. Amongst his nearer family and the few other commercial partners or politicians of which Logan knew that they had intimately worked together with Uncle Jonas, the face of the photo album stared at him again. And although surely the face was a little bit weathered through the years, the man was in no way aged a lot. It seemed a little bit unnatural to Logan, considering that this man had been already an adult when his father and Uncle Jonas had been toddlers. How old was he? Or rather, how old had he been at Uncle Jonas' funeral? Was he still alive?

Now Logan became agitated. He left his meal, fetched the video and the album and headed toward his desk. There he started immediately an investigation.

But only a couple of minutes later, the doorbell was ringing. Logan sighed and reluctantly moved backwards from his table, since he had just started to dig into the issue. Then he gathered himself shortly, only to spin and move fast toward the entrance door with the help of only a few powerful determined strokes to his wheels.

As he opened, Max stood in his doorframe with a seductive black and white short robe, some sort of silver glitter in her hair, holding a wrapped up pink parcel with a black bow and a bottle in her other hand.

„Surprise", she yelled and continued in a somewhat more normal voice: „Happy Birthday Logan!"

Max had clearly problems to stiffle her giggling as she gave him the pink present.

Logan was intrigued by her comportment. What was she up to?


End file.
